‡Pre-Infusing: Pre-infusing is a technique where the dry coffee grounds are initially saturated with hot water, allowing a “bloom” of carbon dioxide to escape. This 45-second(ish) process puts hot water into contact with more surface area around each ground throughout the brewing process, as it’s no longer competing with the escaping gas bubbles. It can improve the quality of the final product, since this more uniform contact creates a more even extraction. It’s a feature that six of the 10 pots we tested incorporated into their designs — as well as all four of our top picks.

The built-in burr grinder is high quality, and you can easily adjust the grind size and amount with a dial on the front of the machine. You can choose to use either a single- or double-wall filter basket, and the grinder will automatically adjust to give you the right about of coffee grounds for your brew. Reviewers love that it comes with the grinder and praise its quality.

The machine itself is large, but not as monstrous as some of the other grinders I tested. It's also very bottom-heavy, which makes it feel more durable than other machines and means it won't rattle all over your counter while grinding. The heavy-duty translucent plastic collection cup generates less static cling than the glossy clear plastic cups I tested, and the chute that connects the burrs to the cup collects less debris than other models. Cleaning is simple: Just remove the top burr and use the included wire brush to remove residual grounds.

In France, in about 1710, the Infusion brewing process was introduced. This involved submersing the ground coffee, usually enclosed in a linen bag, in hot water and letting it steep or "infuse" until the desired strength brew was achieved. Nevertheless, throughout the 19th and even the early 20th centuries, it was considered adequate to add ground coffee to hot water in a pot or pan, boil it until it smelled right, and pour the brew into a cup.
If tinkering is what you’re most excited about, we recommend the Behmor Brazen Plus Customizable Temperature Control Brew System. This is a drip machine that takes its job seriously. It performed the very best in our out-of-the-box taste testing, but still gives you the opportunity to play around with different variables, from water temperature to pre-infusion times. At around $200, it’s on-par with the OXO 9-Cup price-wise, but is definitely not as nice to look at or use, with a tall, bulbous body, squat carafe, and an eight-button programmable interface that reminded us of a digital alarm clock.
The K-Select combines sleek design and simple button controls to help you brew your perfect cup every time. For coffee lovers that enjoy a bold brew, the Strong Brew button increases coffee's strength and intensity and the 52-ounce water reservoir means you can brew 5 cups before refilling. Four cup sizes allow you to make 6, 8, 10, or 12 ounces of your favorite beverages in under a minute, while the Quiet Brew Technology feature minimizes noise during use. Just pop in a pod and select your...
The Mr. Coffee Optimal Brew coffee maker System has a highly modular design, with its rectangular water reservoir easily sliding in and out of the chassis. For those who only want a cup of basic coffee, you will find that the Mr. Coffee Optimal Brew coffee maker System will do that very well – its "brew now" button is found on the front of the machine.
This testing was designed to highlight the difference in how each machine extracted its coffee grounds. Remember, extraction is tied to water temperature, how long the grounds had to steep, and how evenly that water is distributed in the brew basket. (Depending on how the machine distributes the water and the shape of the basket, any particular ground may or may not receive the same amount of time in contact with water — thus any individual grind may be over-extracted, under-extracted, or just right.) Properly extracted grounds would have a balance of notes and aromas, from slight hints of acid to a pleasant amount of bitterness.
The impact of science and technological advances as a motif in post-war design was eventually felt in the manufacture and marketing of coffee and coffee-makers. Consumer guides emphasized the ability of the device to meet standards of temperature and brewing time, and the ratio of soluble elements between brew and grounds. The industrial chemist Peter Schlumbohm expressed the scientific motif most purely in his "Chemex" coffeemaker, which from its initial marketing in the early 1940s used the authority of science as a sales tool, describing the product as "the Chemist's way of making coffee", and discussing at length the quality of its product in the language of the laboratory: "the funnel of the CHEMEX creates ideal hydrostatic conditions for the unique... Chemex extraction." Schlumbohm's unique brewer, a single Pyrex vessel shaped to hold a proprietary filter cone, resembled nothing more than a piece of laboratory equipment, and surprisingly became popular for a time in the otherwise heavily automated, technology-obsessed 1950s household.
One of the many issues with other coffee makers is that the brewing process is inconsistent, with temperature fluctuations that can potentially affect the acidity, aroma, and final flavor of your beverage. The OXO On Barista Brain Coffee Maker is fixed with an intelligent microprocessor that monitors ambient temperatures throughout the brewing process.
Buy from the experts. The team at Whole Latte Love has been selling coffee and espresso equipment since 1997. We have hundreds of videos and blog posts including product reviews, side-by-side comparisons, buying guides, and tech tips so you can shop with confidence. You can also take advantage of our encyclopedic knowledge of coffee on our Support Wiki.
Here at the Strategist, we like to think of ourselves as crazy (in the good way) about the stuff we buy, but as much as we’d like to, we can’t try everything. Which is why we have People’s Choice, in which we find the best-reviewed (that’s four-to-five-star reviews and lots of ‘em) products and single out the most convincing. Here, the best coffee makers on Amazon, according to the people (note that reviews have been edited for length and clarity). Note that we’ve already talked to coffee snobs to find out their favorites, and also picked out the best espresso makers, too. And if you’re curious about coffee grinders, pour-over coffee set-ups and French-presses, we’ve got those as well.
*When you buy a machine with coffee credits you will receive a code with credits to buy coffee from curated roasters in the Spinn app. The credits will be uploaded in your account settings of the app. The credits allow for easy browsing and discovery of local and national coffee roasters. The credits will be used for automatically ordering when your Spinn machine is running low.
Programmable coffee makers exist to make the brewing process as painless as possible. Outside of maybe grinding your coffee beans, the drip coffee system will use optimal water temperatures of around 205 degrees Fahrenheit or 96.11 degrees Celsius for maximum extraction of the ground coffee beans. The best automatic coffee maker will seamlessly reach this temperature within minutes of the brewing process.

Some machines come with all the accessories you need to make espresso, but others don't. Check to see if your machine includes any accessories before you buy them. You will need a grinder to have freshly ground espresso, a milk frother or a milk frothing pitcher if you like foamy milk for cappuccinos or lattes, and a tamper to press down the coffee grounds before you make espresso. We explain why you need each one and recommend which ones to buy below:

Breville Oracle Espresso Maker. Maintains temperature to within 1.35 degrees of optimum brewing temperature during extraction for fullest flavor. Model #BES980XL. Separate air pump allows for customized milk frothing: select latte or cappuccino and the machine automatically adjusts the amount of froth, while a sensor detects when milk has reached the ideal temperature.
Buy from the experts. The team at Whole Latte Love has been selling coffee and espresso equipment since 1997. We have hundreds of videos and blog posts including product reviews, side-by-side comparisons, buying guides, and tech tips so you can shop with confidence. You can also take advantage of our encyclopedic knowledge of coffee on our Support Wiki.
CR’s take: If you need only one or two cups of coffee each morning and you don’t want a pod coffee maker, consider the Technivorm Moccamaster Cup-One Brewer. Compact and clean-lined, it has a profile that makes some sense of its high price (it retails for more than $200), and it’s a superstar when it comes to reliability. Technivorm was one of only three drip machine brands to earn an Excellent rating for predicted reliability in our member survey. Our testers also give this machine a strong score for brew performance. This model has only one simple feature (auto-shutoff) and it’s not the easiest machine to use, but you can count on it to last.